Category Archives: Calls for Papers

From E.T.A Hoffmann’s Tales of Hoffmann and Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep to Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot and Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End authors have been exploring the human/machine interface since before the computer age. Today we stand on the threshold to the lab as the government contemplates microchipping all U.S. military personnel and Swedish office workers are already implanting themselves for convenience ala M.T. Anderson’s Feed. A 2014 study conducted by Cisco Systems found approximately one-quarter of the white-collar professionals surveyed “would leap at the chance to get a surgical brain implant that allowed them to instantly link their thoughts to the Internet”. We are already experimenting with gene therapy, cybernetics via cochlear implants and many other technical organic enhancements, autonomous self-replicating robots, nanotechnology, mind uploading, and artificial intelligence.

The Spring 2018 edition of Interdisciplinary Humanities wants to consider topics focused on transhumanism, the singularity, and the arrival of the bio-engineered human/machine interface and what it means for the humanities as we redefine identity, pedagogy, humanity, class structure, literature (past, present, and future) and the diversity of our species. We invite papers in disciplines and areas of study. Multiple disciplines will help us understand and grapple with how we will redefine identity and the diversity of our species through the dynamic interplay of humanity and the acceleration of technology.

The Humanities Education and Research Association, Interdisciplinary Humanities’ parent organization, requires that authors become members of HERA if their essays are accepted for publication. Information on membership may be found at:http://www.h-e-r-a.org/hera_join.htm.

Call for Papers: Drug Regimes in Southern Africa: Regulation and Consumption in Twentieth Century Contexts

Since the early twentieth century especially, accelerating flows of people, capital, knowledge and chemicals have deepened the entanglements of African communities of consumption in global networks of legal and illicit drug production, consumption, flow, profit and risk. In southern Africa today, the ability to provide access to effective and affordable pharmaceutical medicaments – analgesics, antibiotics, anti-retroviral medicines, hormones, and vaccines, amongst others – is imperative to the successes of health-care systems and interventions. Unregulated supplements, stimulants, tonics and other commodities play a major role in the daily self-care practices and expenditures of millions. Moreover, while provision and procurement of medicines for much of this region has been determined historically by racialised and gendered ideas of the ‘deserving health citizen’, diversionary uses, adaptations and repurposing of medicines have also flourished as part of subversive, illegal and private economies of health-seeking, leisure and intimacy.

We invite submissions that shed light on these dynamics and that will both broaden and deepen a twentieth context for understanding contemporary and more thoroughly researched topics such as, for instance, HIV/AIDS. We especially encourage research that explores local meanings, patterns of consumption, exchange and/or regulation through the lens a particular drug, medicament, substance, commodity or therapeutic treatment.

Relevant themes include, but are not limited to:

Chemical biographies: individual encounters and personal regimes

Formal and informal cultures of medicinal exchange and knowledge production

Representations in marketing and other media over time

Spatial and cultural geographies and identities in patterning medicinal consumption

Southern African regional and national drug regulatory regimens in the twentieth century: turning points, national agendas, consumers and demands, cross-border and global flows

Disruptions of the binary of ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ medicines

Addictive medicines and substances and associated treatments

How do ‘good’ drugs go ‘bad’ and ‘bad drugs go good’?

Fakes, counterfeiting and chemical trickery

The rise of new ailments (and cures) in new social conditions

The Workshop, funded by a Small Grant of the Wellcome Trust, will cover the costs of accommodation for three nights (and most meals) for up to 15 participants who reside outside of the Johannesburg/Pretoria area. To encourage the participation of emerging and younger scholars, as well as post-graduate students and participants outside of South Africa, there are some limited funds available also to support travel. As part of this event, participants will be introduced to two under-utilized archives in Johannesburg, in order to stimulate ideas for ongoing and future research projects and collaborations.

We have extended our deadline. Please submit an abstract of 300 words, together with a brief biography, by September 10 2017. Select authors will be invited to share developed paper proposals of 2000 words for presentation by 15 October 2017. Direct all enquiries and submissions to ProfThembisa Waetjen at twaetjen@uj.ac.za

This peer-reviewed volume will bring together original and diverse scholarship on the history of medical education and training in the healing arts. Historical research on all periods and geographies are welcome, including global and comparative perspectives, as well as any aspect of learning processes, systems, or experiences.

The inspiration for the book is to celebrate the exceptional and ongoing contributions to research and teaching in History of Medicine made by the Canadian historian-physician Jacalyn Duffin. The volume’s focus on the history of medical education acknowledges Dr. Duffin’s particular impact as an educator of future physicians and advocate for the utility of history in today’s medical curriculum during her tenure as Hannah Chair in History of Medicine at Queen’s University.

Possible topics could include, but are not limited to:

• medical education (within and beyond medical schools) – any time period or region

• comparative, global, non-Western, or local histories of learning how to treat or prevent illness

• apprenticeships or means of knowledge transmission in the healing arts, broadly construed

Please send an abstract of 300 to 500 words detailing the argument, primary sources, and historiographical significance of the proposed chapter, in addition to a 1-page CV. Selection of submissions is by jury. Invitations to contribute will be extended by the end of this calendar year, at which time we will ask all contributors to commit to submitting their manuscripts for peer-review by August 2018.

Medica: The Society for the Study of Healing in the Middle Ages seeks to bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars (historians, archaeologists, art historians, literary scholars, paleopathologists, etc.) focusing on health and healing in the Middle Ages.

In 2018 Medica is sponsoring two sessions at the 53rd International Congress on Medieval Studies, which will be held in Kalamazoo, Michigan from May 10–13, 2018. These sessions are intended to focus on two different spaces where medical interactions took place. Together these sessions will explore questions relating to the ways in which these spaces of medical practice influenced how medical professionals shaped their careers and what different kinds of surgical and medical practices were provided. The specific sessions are:

1) Military Medicine: Wounds and Disease in Warfare

This session invites papers that explore questions relating to warfare and healing. We envision papers that might discuss the nature of wounds and battlefield injuries and/or their treatment. Papers that consider the biographies of battlefield surgeons and examine the training and career paths of these people would also be sought. Furthermore, papers might address questions relating to the general health of armies and their camp followers (including the prevalence of different diseases, nutritional concerns, etc.).

2) Medicine in Cities: Public Health and Medical Professions

This session invites papers that explore questions relating to health and the practice of medicine in cities. Papers in this session could explore the different types of healers present in urban centers (e.g. physicians, surgeons, barber-surgeons, apothecaries), their organization into guilds, and the ways in which their medical practices were regulated. Papers that consider questions about public health in cities are also welcomed – such papers might explore questions of sanitation, industrial health, the presence of animals in cities, food preparation, prevalent diseases, and similar topics.

If interested, please submit an abstract of roughly 250-300 words along with a Participant Information Form (PIF), which can be found at http://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/submissions. All proposal materials are due by September 15, 2017.

If you have questions about either of the sessions, or would like to submit an abstract, please direct emails to Harry York at why@pdx.edu.

The Journal of Military, Veteran and Family Health aims to maximize the mental, physical and social health and well-being of military personnel, Veterans and their families by publishing world class research to a broad international and multidisciplinary readership of researchers, clinicians, administrators, and policy makers. http://bit.ly/jmvfh_cfp

JMVFH publishes original research articles and several other types of articles related to the health and well-being of the populations of interest including: Emerging Practices and Programs, Clinical Practice Reviews, Arts and Humanities articles, Perspectives, Talking Points, and Letters.

The journal welcomes submissions in the following research theme areas:

Mental health and rehabilitation

Physical health and rehabilitation

Social health and well-being

Transition from military to civilian life

Family health and wellbeing

Evolving treatment practices or programs

Occupational and environmental health

Novel health technologies related to military service

Transitions back to family life after deployment

Health care policies and programs

Military history related to health and well-being

The arts and military health and well-being, and

Gender based research related to any of the above theme areas.

The journal is multidisciplinary in scope and accepts articles from researchers and clinicians conducting research relevant to enhancing the physical, mental or social health of the beneficiary populations. Some of these disciplines include Bioinformatics, Biomechanical Engineering, Kinesiology and Health Studies, Medicine, Neurosciences, Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Organizational Behavior, Physical Therapy, Psychiatry, Psychology, Public Administration, Public Health, Social Work, Sociology, and the Arts and Humanities.

For more details about article types and submission requirements please consult the Guidelines for Submissions –http://bit.ly/jmvfhguide

The aim of this new open-access journal is to maximize the health and social well-being of military personnel, Veterans, and their families by disseminating world-class research to a broad international and multidisciplinary readership of researchers, practitioners, administrators, and policy makers.

The Journal of Military, Veteran and Family Health provides a forum for the latest research in mental and physical health and rehabilitation, social health and wellbeing, the transition from military to civilian life, family health and wellbeing, evolving treatment practices or programs, occupational and environmental health, novel health technologies related to military service, transitions back to family life after deployment, health care or health-related policies and programs, military history related to health and wellbeing, the arts and military health and well-being, and gender-based research related to any of the above. JMVFH is edited by Alice Aiken and Stéphanie Bélanger, and managed by Mike Schaub.

Life, Science and Power in History
Call for papers for a special issue of the EASTS Journal

Deadline for submissions: September 30, 2017

In the twenty-first century, East Asian societies encounter diverse predicaments in terms of modern science, technologies, and medicine. Since the late twentieth century, organ transplantation, genome research and euthanasia have been argued widely in the politics, society, and culture of countries in East Asia. The research environment around science and technology became more competitive, which sometime caused manipulation of, or fabrication of, experimental results. In 2011 Japan experienced a series of breakdown of nuclear power plants in Fukushima, in which extensive parts of east Japan struggle with radioactive contamination. All these situations urge us to reconsider our belief in, and ethics of, life, science and power. It is certainly necessary that science and technology studies and medical humanities consider this topic.

This special issue “Life, Science and Power in History and Philosophy” is to re-construct, extend, and develop the humanities perspectives to understand medicine in East Asia. In so doing, it promotes further development of interdisciplinary studies of science, technology and medicine from the viewpoints of humanities. Papers will examine modern medicine in East Asia from for perspectives, namely, 1) philosophical dimensions, 2) cultural dimensions, 3) social dimensions, 4) epistemological dimensions.

Among the questions that papers might explore are:

* What, if any, are the unique features related to the issue of “life, science and power” in East Asia?
* Are recent incidents related to the issue of “life, science and power” in East Asia?
* How has the political, economic, social, philosophical and cultural environment in East Asia contributed to the issue of “life, science and power” in this region?
* How have we thought of biopolitics and biopower oriented by Michel Foucault in East Asia?
* How have the scientific community, research institutes, and the state responded to the issue of “life, science and power” in East Asia?
We welcome papers from a range of disciplines, including STS, sociology, history, and anthropology.

Papers should be between 8,000 and 12,000 words including reference and other text, clearly addressing the theme and focus of the subject issue. Please submit your paper to BOTH of the following e-mails: eastsjournal@gmail.com AND atakabayashi@rikkyo.ac.jp. Please indicate in the email title that your submission is for the Life, Science and Power in History special issue.

Over 22-25 March 2018, the Army Medical Department Center of History and Heritage and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences will be co-sponsoring a conference on the medical history of WWI.

It will be hosted at the U.S. Army Medical Department Center and School in San Antonio, Texas.

Presentations on all facets of medicine and healthcare related to the war are welcome, to include: historical understandings of military medicine as practiced by all participants and in all geographic regions; consideration of the repercussions of the war on the practice of medicine; medicine in various campaigns; effects on the home fronts; postwar medical issues; mental health issues; the pandemic influenza; and related topics.

Presentations should be 30 minutes long, and two-paper panels are welcome.

As with the 2012 conference, we anticipate publication of selected papers.